Engaging with AIIM

Well passively following perhaps.  I’ve recently attended a number of webinars organised by AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) and have been impressed with the conversation around #aiim and the quality of their website.

Indeed I am seriously considering looking further into the Certified Information Professional (CIP) accreditation.  If holders are out there do get in touch.

The CIP standard seems to have a comprehensive capability framework and covers a number of areas around record and data management, arguably ever more important for information professionals with the growth of electronic data.  Indeed the certification covers areas that the UK’s Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) is sometimes criticized for not covering in enough detail due to its wide scope.

AIIM’s European/UK body seems to make a lot of sense in an area that would probably be between CILIP and the British Computer Society (BCS) in the UK – or “bridge IT and business” as they advertise – similar to the Information and Records Management Society.

Is Google Play the sign Google no longer cares about me?

Okay, so its only a name change, but the death of the Android Market in preference to the Google Play Store seems a curious move from the big G.

Not that long ago I was becoming more and more Google, using Docs, Gmail, Reader and more.  However, even with an Android phone, I find myself looking at options elsewhere.  The ‘Play’ switch risks alienating the Enterprise and users such as me even more.  Okay I might buy the odd movie, book and music file but that is not a huge percentage of my expenditure.

This video perhaps shows why Play is like it is – going down the hardware route is shifting Google’s focus and I am not entirely sure it is for the better.

Perhaps Microsoft may yet come good via Windows 8.

The next twelve months is certainly going to be a big one in consumer and enterprise technology.

Should central government happen to be reading…

There are plenty of views online already about the latest government announcement that could have a huge impact on the education of teenagers in the UK, decreasing further the need for teachers to hold a teaching qualification.  I thought I would just put down my mixed feelings on the news.

Personally I am willing to accept there are problems with the current system.  Some of the things that astound me about UK secondary education continue even when they have become high profile, for example the quality standards of school meals – many of which are surely worse than Subway?  In this and other areas there seems to be a lack of forward planning and I suspect that kind of organization will only happen when, as a country, we have a more intelligent combination of local talent/views (led by head teachers but certainly not restricted to them) and central government.  This may be some form of ‘Council of Education’ supported by powerful Local Education Authorities, it may be a democratic House of Lords with long serving head teachers and vice chancellors among their number, it may be one of many other models – the problem seems to be that changes take place which do not have consultation before hand.  The government does itself no favours at all by releasing such stories hidden away under the Olympics coverage – which in itself is a somewhat old fashioned approach considering that, whilst you might not get a mention on the main TV broadcast, you will probably still get called upon by twenty-four hour news and you certainly will by those following their RSS and social media feeds

In terms of educational outcomes, some centralization towards Whitehall control might make sense.  One thing that has always astounded me is that we can have a lengthy national curriculum but then expect teachers to waste time preparing resources or, and possibly even worse, individual schools and Local Educational Authorities licensing bits of content.  There seems room for some centralization?  The same can be said for educational technology purchases and other areas.  Yet, where centralizing services do (or rather did) exist, such as shared library services, Local Education Authorities and the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency they have been the victims of policy decisions and budget cuts.  I have commented elsewhere, including when chatting at events, my belief that we need to globalize education in this country, most likely through borrowing from examples of online schooling from other countries.  If classroom education was designed for the Industrial Revolution how can we now build educational experiences that give students a global view?  Online experiences could help children realise there is much more beyond their locale (which may or may not be where they decide to live once they are 16/18/21) and help the UK become fully integrated in the future world through collaborations with other education systems in the UK, EU and beyond.  This is another confusing element of the current policy changes – the rhetoric often calls upon 1950s or 60s education as its examples when something very different is surely needed.

Fundamentally there seems a distinct lack of a link, currently at least, between possible improvement through centralization and the idea of ‘opening up’ education to more free market forces.  Perhaps the idea is that everything can be centralized so it can be carved up/controlled/set free – the issue seems to be that there is not a clear policy road map.  Or perhaps there is but if the main driving force is to find ways to bring down average teacher pay then said map is not going to shown to anyone any time soon.

There have been plenty of calls for debates on education and the latest policy change will only accelerate those.  At least the previous government were clear in their opposing view, setting timescales for new teachers to be qualified beyond teacher qualifications and through to full masters level qualifications.

I would like to congratulate the current government for at least looking to transform education, the problem seems to be knowing exactly what it is they are trying to achieve and the fear that they may yet make some big mistakes.

Final post on my online MSc

If you ever read my last blog, you will have seen various posts about the online MSc course I was working through during the last three years.  You will have also seen that I was not always very positive about the experience.  Thus is it was interesting, just as I was graduating from that course, to see the increase in press coverage for MOOCs and the increasing adoption of ‘free’ online course programmes such as coursera.org.

The major question for me is how, in these course formats, the instructor/tutor role is formed and the level of socialisation with other students.  At times my MSc was limited to working through materials with some discussion board or synchronous chat.  This, to me, is eLearning as has existed for some time and in many ways a replication of a lecture-heavy instructional design.  Indeed accessing static eLearning materials will be familiar to many from the workplace and there are plenty of examples online, including via Alison.

The real value of an educational experience is often the support of experts and your peers in giving a context to your learning.  I fear many large-scale courses are not managing this well.  For example, my recent MOOC experience of Google’s Power Searching with Google MOOC, which contained some good instructional video and useful activities, struggled with a very ‘noisy’ discussion platform.  Do you then start to select entrants, as traditional university courses have, to try and ensure a higher quality experience?  Alternatively do you deliver static materials as a way to advertise what is possible for a fully supported experience, in the form of open course ware rather than open courses.

So what have I been doing?

Anyone connected to me on LinkedIn will know I have changed jobs since posting my final message to my old blog.

As can be expected when changing jobs, it has been a busy time but I thought it would be good to setup this new site to try and maintain my reflections on personal development.

Whilst I will not be blogging directly on work related issues, my personal development both in and outside of the workplace will be considered, along with the odd piece on big news stories in the general area of ‘Educational Informatics‘ and education in general.